Hi! I’m Pam Powell, founder and creator of The Salad Girl Organic Salad Dressing Company. I am also a mural/graphic artist. I love to create ! I have painted murals, furnishings and wall designs for over 15 years all over the United States with www.pamandilydesigns.com
Because of this crazy economy, I found my livelihood as a mural artist starting to dwindle a couple of years ago. Not ready to retire, I looked at my past experience. When I was 15, I got a job as a ” salad girl ” at Madden’s Pine Beach Lodge & Resort in Brainerd, Minnesota. I learned how to cook and loved preparing really fresh, unique, creative salads. I worked at several restaurants during high school and college, and I learned a little about every part of the food service industry. My husband, Jim, and I both enjoyed eating and cooking with whole and organic foods and cooking to entertain, so we began catering private dinner parties on weekends while we were finishing college.
We gathered several creative salads and salad dressings in our catering repertoire. The fresh salads were my favorite part of the menu to design and prepare. Our clients really loved the creative vinaigrettes that I came up with and started to order these dressings as Christmas gifts for family and friends each year.
Three years ago, a friend that received dressings for a gift gave them to a local grocery store owner. She loved them and excitedly suggested that we had something unique and different from anything available yet and promised that she would put them on her refrigerated shelves if we committed to the journey of bringing an organic product to market.
This was our motivation to begin this venture, so we pulled out some of our favorite organic salad dressing recipes and began the journey of bringing these organic products to market. We spent two years at The Mill City Farmers Market (Minneapolis) learning the ropes of food production, marketing, and sales. Our dressings sold out every weekend. Now, with a whole lot of help from my family and friends, Salad Girl Organic Dressings can be found in 75 stores in the Midwest including many wonderful co-ops, Whole Foods Markets, Lunds & Byerly’s, Festival Stores, Coburns Delivers and Kowalski’s Markets !
My Saving Grace — Sarah Baron Sullivan. I would like to introduce to you our very talented and lovely editor, contributing writer, and COS, (chief of spellcheck!) Sarah Baron Sullivan. Sarah is a freelance writer focusing on sustainability in the home and in the workplace. We are so lucky to have such a smart, passionate, informative, and beautiful spirit writing for The Salad Girls Blog – thank you Sarah !
Sarah Baron Sullivan, who helps me write my blog, researched and wrote the green tips, salad intros, and resource section and provided the first round of editing for the book
Blogging has become a great venue for sharing recipes, Salad Girl news, nutrition information, “green” living tips, and insights for food entrepreneurs. It’s also a great way to stay in touch with our organic customers and our friends! We also have a website for The Salad Girl Organic Salad Dressings, www.saladgirldressings.com . Let us know what you think !
Enjoy Your Greens!
Pam (aka “The Salad Girl”)
your blueberry basil is out of this world. i have two hotels and
Hi! I am a big fan living in northern Indiana. How can I order your dressing?
Thanks!
Hello Erin!
Please enquire with your produce manager at your local co-op or Whole Foods Store to contact us and we can figure out distribution to that store with them. Have them e-mail us:saladgirlinc@comcast.net
Thank You Erin, we appreciate your support!!!
Pam,
Thank you so much for your donation of two cookbooks to the Nativity Women’s Winter Event. I would like to send you a thank you and a donation receipt for tax purposes. Can you provide me with an address where I can send the letter, please? Sorry to contact you on the message board, I didn’t know how else to get ahold of you.
Thank you,
Alison Cook, NCCW Winter Event
Thanks Alison! Will get info to you!